Thursday, October 31, 2013

Here's a little something from "The Rude Pundit" -- read it. Think about it. Then do whatever you can (legally) to change what's going on in Washington, and in so many statehouses. People will starve. Crime will go up. Anger will simmer until it's rage. All we have to do is be Americans. Do what Americans have always done in the past. Help those with less than us and stop being so proud of being obscenely rich. It's unbecoming to a real American, to someone who knows our history and loves our nation. These plutocrats are going to fall.

GOP Decides Slow Starvation of the Poor Will Ensure Them Victory:
The Rude Pundit thinks that the day starts for most Republicans in
Congress like this (and, in this scenario, the Republican is a male):
After waking up and jacking off to the Syrian chemical weapon attack
videos (especially the ones of the gagging children), Dick Republican
showers, scrubbing his skin with a Brillo pad; he shits out a tight
little turd ball; and he shaves his face so close that his beard is
afraid to grow. He drinks a cup of coffee, punches his wife in the tit,
backhands his two children across the face, and heads out to the car
waiting for him. On his way to work, he has the driver go through the
shittiest areas of DC, like Anacostia or Congress Heights. He stares
through the tinted windows at the poverty and deprivations of the people
there, fondling himself the whole time, thinking about how much he just
wants to take a flamethrower to entire blocks in front of him. He
ponders how much their suffering gets him off. He gets an idea on how to
fuck with the poor today, and he texts it to the Heritage Foundation or
one Koch-run superpac or another. When he gets approval from those in
charge of him, usually by emoticon because they're so goddamned busy, he
knows he's ready to run with it.

For how else, in any way that we could define as "rational," could a
member of Congress not just allow the food stamp program to get a cut by
$5 billion tomorrow (because a recession stimulus program is ending) but also vote in favor of slashing the program in half, by $40 billion over ten years, as the House GOP did in September? The only way it makes any sense at all is if hurting people in poverty was like porn for Republicans.

You wanna know what class warfare actually looks like? It ain't telling
the rich pukes with houses in the Hamptons that they might have to buy a
couple less cases of Chateau de Suckanass Grand Cru for their parties
next summer so we can have bridges that don't fall down. No, it's
telling a family with disabled kids that they have to figure out how to
fucking eat starting next week. It's slashing a program where 87% of the recipients "live in households with children, seniors, or people with disabilities." It's making people decide if they want to eat or have heat during the winter in order to keep the overpriced wine market well-financed.

Republicans want the usual worthless bullshit: drug tests and work rules
for participants. Of course, they want this without providing child
care, health care, job training, or, you know, jobs for people, as if
somehow this will all just magically materialize for people once their
kids are starving at Christmas, just like Jesus wanted them to.

If you need a face to put with your bile and disdain, well, you could
pretty much toss all the Republicans you despise up there: Paul Ryan, Steve King, Marsha Blackburn.

But let's narrow it down to this cockface: Frank Lucas of the completely chimpfuck insane state of Oklahoma. The chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Lucas crowed
like he just ejaculated in a donkey's anus when the House passed the
cuts. Only 6% of the people in his district receive food stamps, so, you
know, fuck them.

When the first food riots happen, probably sometime around Thanksgiving,
let's make sure that these brave Republicans are manning the
barricades. Sure, they might end up eaten as meat by the end, but that's
more good than they've done in Congress.

Fear
And Loathing: American
conservatives' dislike for poor people – witness their current
drive to dismantle the food stamp program, the refusal of 26
Republican governors to accept the no-cost expansion of Medicaid
coverage under Obamacare, and their unthinking rejection of Obamacare
in total – is mainly based on fear. Some small part of their
abhorrence of the poor may stem from sophomoric idealization of 'free
markets' and the idea that those who fail to succeed must be
defective, even more of it is the desire to elevate oneself over
others, but a great deal of it is simple racism.

Victory:
The Congress has managed to cut nearly a million undeserving,
slothful veterans from the food stamp rolls, effective Friday. That
leaves about 46 million Americans on the dole, as the number
receiving food stamps continues to increase, even as employment
slowly recovers – another sign that millions of working Americans
don't make enough to feed their families. 76% percent of SNAP
households included a child, an elderly person, or a disabled person.
These vulnerable households receive 83 percent of all SNAP benefits.
Kicking those veterans off will really save money.

Positively
Negative: US consumer
confidence fell sharply in October, we were less optimistic about the
current situation, and are decidedly gloomier about the future.
Yeah, recovery.

Push/Shove:
No matter how much the Fed would like inflation to be higher,
without putting money in the hands of consumers – a direct stimulus
- it cannot succeed. Flooding the world with money does them little
good if the money is not used (borrowed) by companies to expand their
output, and a company does not make more widgets if it does not see
customers for those widgets. As long as the customer doesn't have
the money (or sufficient credit) to buy the widget, the cash just
piles up in asset heaps, uselessly.

etc., etc., etc.

What in heaven can I write about this stuff without just repeating what so many other folks have already written? Those who dispute these FACTS do so out of some sort of belief and faith. Neither common sense nor actual facts can sway their beliefs --- after all, a whole lot of folks still think Obama is: the anti-Christ, a Muslim, a communist, a Fascist, or a Fascist,Communist, Muslim, Tyrant. The fact he has been elected twice, and cleaned the clock of his opponents both times seems to mean nothing to these folks. Do you think RACISM might have a bit to do with all this crap?

Barton:
It's Not Global Warming, It's The Judgment Of God - See more at:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/barton-its-not-global-warming-its-judgment-god#sthash.V70pJNH5.dpuf

Barton:
It's Not Global Warming, It's The Judgment Of God - See more at:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/barton-its-not-global-warming-its-judgment-god#sthash.V70pJNH5.dpuf

Barton:
It's Not Global Warming, It's The Judgment Of God - See more at:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/barton-its-not-global-warming-its-judgment-god#sthash.V70pJNH5.dpuf

Thursday, October 24, 2013

By the way - just a little personal note: I had a really nasty toothache and infection for the last two weeks. Finally went to a dentist yesterday and had the problem tooth extracted. Now operating on Vicodin and penicillin - at least for another day. Also discovered I need a lot of work -- including at least three more extractions -- oh happy day! I had a bridge break recently, followed by this toothache (not related to the bridge), followed by the x-rays that showed how messed up my mouth really is. Perhaps I'll have "pearly whites" by the time I die.

Always remember, the sign up for "Obamacare" has been handled by PRIVATE INDUSTRY - the magic thing that is "more efficient" than Government. The ONLY thing it's more efficient at is spending huge sums on lobbyists in order to stay in business.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Of late I find myself unable to watch or listen to any "news" shows. Nor can I abide any of the "pundits". As a result, I've been watching stuff like the DIY (Do It Yourself) Channel.

Among the shows is one about "Man Caves". "Man Caves"?? What in hell is that? Is it a supposedly "grown up" version of a boys club house, where no "stinky girls" are allowed? Is it another step in the attempt to make men consumers of more and more toys? A further attempt to keep them "boys" and not really men -- no matter how much they protest they ARE MEN!!

I remember when well-to-do men had a library or a den. Then as we began the attempt to have real families they were called things like "rumpus rooms", finally morphing into family rooms.

I guess that whole "family" thing cuts down on consumption - so, now any decent middle class home has a living room, dining room, family room, eat-in-kitchen, untold numbers of bedrooms, and bathrooms -- maybe even a library and a studio. The newest addition is the "Man Cave" -- which is where the homosocial man-child goes to watch "his" sports, play "his" games and pretend no stinky girls are allowed.

The federal government is shut down, we’re about to hit the debt ceiling
(with disastrous economic consequences), and no resolution is in sight.
How did this happen?

The main answer, which only the most pathologically “balanced” reporting
can deny, is the radicalization of the Republican Party. As Thomas Mann
and Norman Ornstein put it last year in their book, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,”
the G.O.P. has become “an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme;
contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime;
scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of
facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its
political opposition.”

But there’s one more important piece of the story. Conservative leaders
are indeed ideologically extreme, but they’re also deeply incompetent.
So much so, in fact, that the Dunning-Kruger effect — the truly incompetent can’t even recognize their own incompetence — reigns supreme.

To see what I’m talking about, consider the report
in Sunday’s Times about the origins of the current crisis. Early this
year, it turns out, some of the usual suspects — the Koch brothers, the
political arm of the Heritage Foundation and others — plotted strategy
in the wake of Republican electoral defeat. Did they talk about
rethinking ideas that voters had soundly rejected? No, they talked
extortion, insisting that the threat of a shutdown would induce
President Obama to abandon health reform.

This was crazy talk. After all, health reform is Mr. Obama’s signature
domestic achievement. You’d have to be completely clueless to believe
that he could be bullied into giving up his entire legacy by a defeated,
unpopular G.O.P. — as opposed to responding, as he has, by making
resistance to blackmail an issue of principle. But the possibility that
their strategy might backfire doesn’t seem to have occurred to the
would-be extortionists.

Even more remarkable, in its way, was the response of House Republican
leaders, who didn’t tell the activists they were being foolish. All they
did was urge that the extortion attempt be made over the debt ceiling
rather than a government shutdown. And as recently as last week Eric
Cantor, the majority leader, was in effect assuring his colleagues
that the president will, in fact, give in to blackmail. As far as
anyone can tell, Republican leaders are just beginning to suspect that
Mr. Obama really means what he has been saying all along.

Many people seem perplexed by the transformation of the G.O.P. into the
political equivalent of the Keystone Kops — the Boehner Bunglers?
Republican elders, many of whom have been in denial about their party’s
radicalization, seem especially startled. But all of this was
predictable.

It has been obvious for years that the modern Republican Party is no
longer capable of thinking seriously about policy. Whether the issue is
climate change or inflation, party members believe what they want to
believe, and any contrary evidence is dismissed as a hoax, the product of vast liberal conspiracies.

For a while the party was able to compartmentalize, to remain savvy and
realistic about politics even as it rejected objectivity everywhere
else. But this wasn’t sustainable. Sooner or later, the party’s attitude
toward policy — we listen only to people who tell us what we want to
hear, and attack the bearers of uncomfortable news — was bound to infect
political strategy, too.

Remember what happened in the 2012 election — not the fact that Mitt
Romney lost, but the fact that all the political experts around him
apparently had no inkling that he was likely to lose. Polls
overwhelmingly pointed to an Obama victory, but Republican analysts
denounced the polls as “skewed”
and attacked the media outlets reporting those polls for their alleged
liberal bias. These days Karl Rove is pleading with House Republicans to
be reasonable and accept the results of the 2012 election. But on election night
he tried to bully Fox News into retracting its correct call of Ohio —
and hence, in effect, the election — for Mr. Obama.

Unfortunately for all of us, even the shock of electoral defeat wasn’t
enough to burst the G.O.P. bubble; it’s still a party dominated by
wishful thinking, and all but impervious to inconvenient facts. And now
that party’s leaders have bungled themselves into a corner.

Everybody not inside the bubble realizes that Mr. Obama can’t and won’t
negotiate under the threat that the House will blow up the economy if he
doesn’t — any concession at all would legitimize extortion as a routine
part of politics. Yet Republican leaders are just beginning to get a
clue, and so far clearly have no idea how to back down. Meanwhile, the
government is shut, and a debt crisis looms. Incompetence can be a
terrible thing.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Oh dear, I guess those Colorado Republicans didn't quite figure on this. Then again, if their homes weren't destroyed they might just tell you to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". Same guys who voted against giving any help to the Northeast after Sandy now want no DEMAND help for their folks.

As the government shutdown puts a strain
on military members across the country, the Colorado National Guard has
furloughed 650 people, some of whom were working to rebuild communities
devastated by last month’s historic flooding. But the state isn’t
letting the furloughs stand in the way of flood rebuilding.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said Tuesday
he will use state funds to pay the 120 National Guard members working
on flood recovery — workers who are normally paid by FEMA. The daily
cost of the workers is estimated at $40,000 to $80,000,
and until the government reopens, that money will come from the
state’s emergency-relief fund. Once the shutdown ends, the state hopes
to get reimbursed for about 75 percent of the National Guard expenses by
FEMA — the rest of the money will have to come from state and local government funds. Colorado still hopes
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will reclassify the National Guard
members as essential, so that the state doesn’t have to foot the bill
for long.
“We can’t afford to lose one day in rebuilding areas destroyed or
damaged by the floods,” Hickenlooper said. “Our National Guard troops
are an invaluable part of the team working on the recovery. We need them
to stay on the job.”
If the government shutdown drags on, it’s still unclear
how Colorado will deal with the 450 Guard members from Utah, Kansas and
Wyoming who are scheduled to arrive in the state in waves in the coming
months. The state is hoping to get at least one passable lane open in
all major highways by Dec. 1, a goal that could be delayed if the
shutdown creates further kinks in National Guard aid.
But for right now, outside of the National Guard questions that still
remain, rebuilding is going as planned in Colorado. Federal disaster
relief from FEMA is still coming in to the state, as FEMA spokesperson
Dan Watson assured earlier this week. Watson said there are 1,000 FEMA workers on the ground in Colorado, helping Colorado citizens recoup after the disaster. And since state officials are currently tracking
all oil and gas spills as a result of the flood, that work isn’t likely
to be affected by the shutdown. Colorado’s government has not shut
down.
Rebuilding from Superstorm Sandy, too, is expected to continue largely as planned
during the shutdown. But disaster cleanup in other areas may face more
of a challenge. California’s massive Rim fire is now 92 percent
contained, meaning very little of the fire is still burning. But there
are still hot spots on the ground, and though about 41 percent of U.S. Forest Service employees continue to work — including some firefighters such as the elite “hotshots” crews — it could be hard
for them to purchase the supplies and equipment they need as funding
runs low during the shutdown. And since states like Colorado could see
more wildfires this fall, a decrease in firefighters and funding leaves
them, as one local sheriff said, in a precarious position.

The
Big Sleep: Senator Rand
Paul (Mental Giant-KY) who slept through last year's elections and
the debates leading up to passage of the ACA in March 2010, justifies
the government shutdown because “We haven’t had a big debate
about Obamacare since it passed in Congress.” Well, it passed,
dummy.

Möbeus
Stripped: There is but
one 'side' to the shutdown, "checks
and balances" is not what's going on here. Republicans -
unable to accept their defeat, unable to accept that there's a
Democrat in their
White House, unable to accept the idea that poor people may actually
benefit from the goddamed too big government, unable
to accept the basic concepts of democracy - are solely to blame
for the shutdown. They would destroy the country rather than share
it with the rest of us.

Naming
Names: Among those
companies too damned cheap to provide healthcare to their employees
are Forever 21, Trader Joe's, Seaworld, and Home Depot. They are
cutting employees to less than 30 hours a week so they won't have to
pay for health insurance – instead throwing the workers on the
public dole for their healthcare needs. Corporate welfare. Don't go
there. Don't shop there.

To
Serve & Protect:
Two Chattanooga cops, whose defense for punching, tazing and beating
a halfway-house resident so savagely they broke his nose and both his
legs as he lay on the floor begging them to stop, was that their
victim "was almost sitting up a little bit”, have gotten their
jobs back after a local judge ruled their actions were “not ideal”
but not sufficient to “ruin the lives (of) two otherwise
unblemished and promising police officers?" Another reason to
avoid Tennessee.

Bang
Bang You're Stupid: A school system in Florida suspended an
8-year-old boy for pretending that his finger and tumb were a gun
while playing cops and robbers on the school playground. He didn't
even say 'Bang, Bang, you're dead.” With any luck, the
administrators involved will lose their jobs and the school system
lose the lawsuit. Stupidity is not a defense.

Fiesta!
Rep. David Schweikert (Millionaire-AZ) says that shutting down the
government and sending 800,000 federal employees to bed without
supper “is my idea of fun”.

This,
Just In: Reports claim
that the War on Drugs failed. Not so; look at how much money was
made from the pretense, equipment, manpower, money-laundering
profits, privately run prisons, careers, payoffs. Nah, you just
didn't get the memo.

This may be the way the world ends — not with a bang but with a temper tantrum.

O.K., a temporary government shutdown — which became almost inevitable
after Sunday’s House vote to provide government funding only on
unacceptable conditions — wouldn’t be the end of the world. But a U.S.
government default, which will happen unless Congress raises the debt
ceiling soon, might cause financial catastrophe. Unfortunately, many
Republicans either don’t understand this or don’t care.

Let’s talk first about the economics.

After the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996
many observers concluded that such events, while clearly bad, aren’t
catastrophes: essential services continue, and the result is a major
nuisance but no lasting harm. That’s still partly true, but it’s
important to note that the Clinton-era shutdowns took place against the
background of a booming economy. Today we have a weak economy, with
falling government spending one main cause
of that weakness. A shutdown would amount to a further economic hit,
which could become a big deal if the shutdown went on for a long time.

Still, a government shutdown looks benign compared with the possibility
that Congress might refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

First of all, hitting the ceiling would force a huge, immediate spending cut,
almost surely pushing America back into recession. Beyond that, failure
to raise the ceiling would mean missed payments on existing U.S.
government debt. And that might have terrifying consequences.

Why? Financial markets have long treated U.S. bonds as the ultimate safe
asset; the assumption that America will always honor its debts is the
bedrock on which the world financial system rests. In particular,
Treasury bills — short-term U.S. bonds — are what investors demand when
they want absolutely solid collateral against loans. Treasury bills are
so essential for this role that in times of severe stress they sometimes
pay slightly negative interest rates — that is, they’re treated as being better than cash.

Now suppose it became clear that U.S. bonds weren’t safe, that America
couldn’t be counted on to honor its debts after all. Suddenly, the whole
system would be disrupted. Maybe, if we were lucky, financial
institutions would quickly cobble together alternative arrangements. But
it looks quite possible that default would create a huge financial
crisis, dwarfing the crisis set off by the failure of Lehman Brothers
five years ago.

No sane political system would run this kind of risk. But we don’t have a
sane political system; we have a system in which a substantial number
of Republicans believe that they can force President Obama to cancel
health reform by threatening a government shutdown, a debt default, or
both, and in which Republican leaders who know better are afraid to
level with the party’s delusional wing. For they are delusional, about
both the economics and the politics.

On the economics: Republican radicals generally reject the scientific
consensus on climate change; many of them reject the theory of
evolution, too. So why expect them to believe expert warnings about the
dangers of default? Sure enough, they don’t: the G.O.P. caucus contains a
significant number of “default deniers,” who simply dismiss warnings about the dangers of failing to honor our debts.

Meanwhile, on the politics, reasonable people know that Mr. Obama can’t
and won’t let himself be blackmailed in this way, and not just because
health reform is his key policy legacy. After all, once he starts making
concessions to people who threaten to blow up the world economy unless
they get what they want, he might as well tear up the Constitution. But
Republican radicals — and even some leaders — still insist that Mr. Obama will cave in to their demands.

So how does this end? The votes to fund the government and raise the
debt ceiling are there, and always have been: every Democrat in the
House would vote for the necessary measures, and so would enough
Republicans. The problem is that G.O.P. leaders, fearing the wrath of
the radicals, haven’t been willing to allow such votes. What would
change their minds?

Ironically, considering who got us into our economic mess, the most
plausible answer is that Wall Street will come to the rescue — that the
big money will tell Republican leaders that they have to put an end to
the nonsense.

But what if even the plutocrats lack the power to rein in the radicals?
In that case, Mr. Obama will either let default happen or find some way
of defying the blackmailers, trading a financial crisis for a
constitutional crisis.

This all sounds crazy, because it is. But the craziness, ultimately,
resides not in the situation but in the minds of our politicians and the
people who vote for them. Default is not in our stars, but in
ourselves.

About Me

I'm just another old woman who has had wide ranging interests for a long time,
These include fishing, shooting, reading, cooking, and all manner of (mostly) left wing politics.
Born and bred in New York - Queens, to be precise - I now live in Texas, another state that folks seem to attack (like N.Y.) without ever having been here.
I'm also a fan of most sports -- esp. baseball, esp. the New York Yankees.
Originally a New York Giants (baseball) fan, I was crushed when they moved. It took many years wandering in the wilderness before I returned to baseball. I's all Wade Boggs fault. When I watched that artist, my love for baseball resurfaced. Since he was then a Yankee -- it had to be the Yankees.
The Mets pretended they had spiritual ties to the old Brooklyn Dodgers - no Giant fan could go there.
I tried - couldn't do it.